Roadmap: in-place upgrade with detached databases (SharePoint Foundation 2010)
Applies to: SharePoint Foundation 2010
When you upgrade from Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010, you can perform an in-place upgrade or a database attach upgrade, or you can combine certain aspects of both approaches to increase availability or throughput during the upgrade process. This article describes how to perform a hybrid approach that combines in-place upgrade with detaching and attaching databases so that you can upgrade multiple databases at the same time, possibly even on separate hardware. You can use this approach to upgrade two or more content databases at a time, and therefore upgrade more quickly than if you used a standard in-place upgrade (which upgrades individual content databases and site collections serially). This approach uses the following hybrid techniques:
Use an in-place upgrade to upgrade the farm and settings.
Detach and upgrade multiple databases in parallel.
Alternative upgrade sequence: Upgrade databases on a temporary small farm.
Note that if you decide to use a temporary small farm to perform the actual upgrade, you must have direct access to the database servers to copy the databases from. Copying databases over the network takes time and bandwidth — make sure you test this process to determine whether you have the resources you need to use a temporary small farm.
For more information about the pros and cons of the different upgrade approaches, see Determine upgrade approach (SharePoint Foundation 2010). For a brief overview and graphical description of the steps you take for each approach, see Upgrade process overview (SharePoint Foundation 2010).
Note
One frequent cause of failures during upgrade is that the environment is missing customized features, solutions, or other elements. Be sure that any custom elements you need are installed on your front-end Web servers before you begin the upgrade process. You can use the pre-upgrade checker — and, for a database attach upgrade, the test-spcontentdatabase Windows PowerShell cmdlet — to identify any custom elements that your sites might be using. For more information, see Identify and install customizations in the article "Use a trial upgrade to find potential issues."
In this article:
Process overview
Before you begin
To detach databases and upgrade them in parallel on the same farm
To detach databases and upgrade them in parallel on a temporary small farm
Verification
Important
You must be running Service Pack 2 (SP2) of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 in a 64-bit Windows Server 2008 environment to perform an in-place upgrade to SharePoint Foundation 2010. If you are in a server farm environment, you must also be running a 64-bit version of one of the following: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Cumulative Update 2, and SQL Server 2005 with SP3 and Cumulative Update 3.
Process overview
Because this upgrade approach is a hybrid of the techniques used for in-place upgrade and database attach upgrade, this article describes how the steps from each approach fit together into the hybrid process. It does not provide details for every step in the process, because those steps are available in the following articles:
These articles, combined with this roadmap, give you the information you need to perform this hybrid upgrade.
There are two ways in which you can perform this type of hybrid upgrade: using one farm throughout or using a temporary small farm to perform the actual upgrade. The sections below provide the steps you need to take to perform the upgrade by using each of these methods.
Before you begin
Before you begin the in-place upgrade, review the following information about permissions, hardware requirements, and software requirements and steps to perform before beginning the process.
Be sure you have run the pre-upgrade checker tool (stsadm -o preupgradecheck, available in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 2 and updated in the October 2009 Cumulative Update) and addressed any issues before you begin the upgrade process. For more information, see Run the pre-upgrade checker (SharePoint Foundation 2010).
We recommend that you back up your environment before you begin the upgrade process. For more information, see Back up the entire environment before an in-place upgrade (SharePoint Foundation 2010).
Ensure that you have met all hardware and software requirements. You must have a 64-bit version of Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2. For server farms, you must also have a 64-bit version of SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2008. For more information about these requirements (such as specific updates that you must install), see Determine hardware and software requirements (SharePoint Foundation 2010).
Ensure that you are prepared to set up the required accounts by using appropriate permissions. For detailed information, see Administrative and service accounts required for initial deployment (SharePoint Foundation 2010).
To detach databases and upgrade them in parallel on the same farm
This section describes the steps to take to use the detach databases upgrade approach on a single farm.
| Process for upgrading in-place with detached databases (same farm) |
|---|
Detach databases
|
Upgrade the farm in place
For detailed procedures that describe these steps, see Upgrade in place to SharePoint Foundation 2010. |
Attach the databases and upgrade the content
For detailed procedures that describe these steps, see Perform a database attach upgrade to SharePoint Foundation 2010. |
To detach databases and upgrade them in parallel on a temporary small farm
This section describes the steps to take to use the detach databases upgrade approach on two farms: the original farm and a temporary small farm.
| Process for upgrading in-place with detached databases (temporary small farm) | |
|---|---|
| Set up a temporary small farm to use in upgrading the databases For detailed procedures that describe these steps, see Prepare the new SharePoint Foundation 2010 environment for a database attach upgrade. | |
| 2 - Detach databases from the original farm
| |
| Upgrade the original farm in place
For detailed procedures that describe these steps, see Perform an in-place upgrade (SharePoint Foundation 2010). | |
| Attach the databases to the temporary small farm and upgrade the content
For detailed procedures that describe these steps, see Perform a database attach upgrade to SharePoint Foundation 2010. | |
| Back up the databases from the temporary small farm and attach them to the original farm
This is basically the same process as the previous step; however, you are moving the databases from the temporary small farm back to the original farm. The same procedures apply as in the previous steps. | |
Verification
If upgrade fails or reports issues, you can refer to the log and error files for more information. For more information about reviewing the log files, and about restarting upgrade after a failure, see Verify upgrade and review upgraded sites (SharePoint Foundation 2010).
See Also
Other Resources
Downloadable book: Upgrading to SharePoint Foundation 2010
Resource Center: Upgrade and Migration for SharePoint Foundation 2010